Steam-Powered Car Breaks Century-Old Speed Record 187
mcgrew writes "New Scientist reports that a steam-powered car has broken the 1906 record of 204 km/hr (127 mph) for the fastest steam-powered automobile, the Stanley Steamer. The Inspiration made a top speed of 225 kilometres per hour (140 miles per hour) on August 26. 'The car's engine burns liquid petroleum gas to heat water in 12 suitcase-sized boilers, creating steam heated to 400C. The steam then drives a two-stage turbine that spins at 13,000 revolutions per minute to power its wheels.The FIA requires two 1.6-km-long runs to be performed in opposite directions — to cancel out any effect from wind — within 60 minutes.'"
Re:did anyone else besides me (Score:3, Informative)
Since neither the term airplane or helicopter indicate it's power source, I'm going with airplane or helicopter
Re:Check that off the obscure to-do list (Score:4, Informative)
That style of bike is called a Penny-farthing.
It's not like we use steam for cutting-edge tech like nuclear power plants or anything.
Re:Stanley Steamer? (Score:2, Informative)
I don't think a Stanley Steamer is the same as a Cleveland Steamer. A Cleveland Steamer involves shitting on a girl's face while covering it in Saran Wrap. A Stanley Steamer uses tin-foil. Now you know.
Re:Check that off the obscure to-do list (Score:5, Informative)
The name of the bike you are, presumably, referring to is called a penny farthing. They worked by direct drive. The cranks were tied directly into the front hub. You would generally get the largest wheel your legs would allow so that you could travel as fast as possible. The bigger diameter of the front wheel the further you would go with one rotation.
Interestingly the first geared bicycles, that resemble the ones we ride now, were called safety bicycles. Presumably this was because you were closer to the ground and had less distance to fall. However the invention of gearing on the safety bicycle allowed a rider to travel much faster than would of even been possible on a penny farthing. Bicycles today are far more dangerous than a penny farthing. Even going downhill, the penny farthing rider is limited to how fast they can pedal (the cranks never stop spinning) but todays bicycles employ multiple gearing ratios and free wheels/hubs that allow for extremely fast speeds. As I understand it penny farthings quickly died out after the invention of the safety bicycle.
-Will
Re:did anyone else besides me (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently [wikipedia.org] both airplanes and helicopters have been powered by steam.
Re:Drag increases at the cube of velocity (Score:3, Informative)
Mod parent up! This is basic physics folks; I would have hoped more people on Slashdot new this. Wind resistance is the single most limiting factor in land speed records.
To illustrate, this high-powered modern steam vehicle hit 225 km/h, or 140 mph. Bruce Bursford beat this by nearly 50% on a bicycle [britannia.com], setting the world record of 334.6 km/h or 207.9 mph. He biked on a treadmill, with no wind resistance.
Re:More details would be nice (Score:5, Informative)
Sure the temperature means something. You don't get steam above 212F without increasing the pressure. So the temp tells you roughly the pressure. I did a quick search for a chart, and it says 400 degrees would be around 235 PSIG. In comparison, your 600 PSIG boiler ran about 489 degrees and the 1000 PSIG ran about 546 degrees.
http://www.indpipe.com/images/PDF/steam_temperature_pressure_table.pdf [indpipe.com]
(Just the first link I found.)
Re:All oficial times (Score:4, Informative)
Um, no, they don't. Coal-fired ships generated steam to drive a reciprocating piston engine. Nuclear powered ships use their superheated steam to drive turbines.
Also, "naval", unless the ships you're referring to are in fact associated with belly buttons.
Untrue (Score:5, Informative)
In 1905, the British Admiralty announced all new ships of the line would be turbine driven.
Babcock & Wilcox built coal fired boilers through the 50's - most of these driving turbines.
By the time of the Stanley record, piston steam was on it's way out for capital ships
Now, some WWII naval ships used piston steam driven pumps for damage control, but it sounds like you're talking about main propulsion.
Re:All oficial times (Score:4, Informative)
> Coal-fired ships generated steam to drive a reciprocating piston engine
References?
Here's one to the contrary :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbinia [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_turbine#Marine_propulsion [wikipedia.org]
Also from that latter article:
"Steam turbine locomotives were also tested, but with limited success."
which, I think, is what you're talking about.
Re:More details would be nice (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_gas_law [wikipedia.org]
Assuming that in a boiler, the volume of the boiler and amount of water in it is constant (i.e the amount of steam leaving is the same as the amount of water coming in), then the temperature and pressure are directly proportional.
Re:All oficial times (Score:2, Informative)
More pics here (Score:2, Informative)
Re:All oficial times (Score:3, Informative)
Do I need to go on?
Besides, math isn't the only thing one needs in order to build a fast vehicle. You need pretty advanced materials and the ability to fabricate something useful from them, according to some design that can be planned out and captured along the way. I don't want to denigrate the abilities of designers and machinists of 1906, but today we have fantastically more sophisticated design and fabrication technologies available to us, and more advanced materials to apply them to.
Re:All oficial times (Score:4, Informative)
Ah yes. A common myth about the "illiterate past" that is simply not true.
According to de Tocqueville who traveled the U.S. and documented what he saw, the literacy rate during Thomas Jefferson's term (circa 1804) was nearly 100%. Parents bought "readers" for their children and expected these kids to self-teach themselves how to read and write. They recognized that their new Republic would only work if the voters were educated enough to read the weekly newspapers.
By 1906 every state had mandatory education upto 9th grade, so "the chance" your average American knew 7th grade math was effectively 99.9%.
Re:Out of steam (Score:3, Informative)
1. Steam cars did not emit dirty smoke. Unlike steam trains, steam ships, and very early steam cars, the later steam cars only used liquid fuels. It burns fuel like a propane stove, and burns very clean. Internal combustion engines burned their fuel far less efficiently until the last few decades, because the burn has to occur inside the cylinder within a few milliseconds of time. The steam engine combustion is like a torch or stove burner, it burns every bit of fuel for heat.
2. In terms of engine size, steam engines in steam cars just weren't that big. The boiler in a Stanley Steamer was smaller than a mini-fridge, and the engine was only 2 cylinders. Because the steam is created outside the engine cylinder, it has nearly full engine torque right from launch. Steam cars also did not use transmissions, which saved on complexity and weight. Remember too, the internal combustion engines of the steam car era produced ridiculously low power output per unit of engine displacement by modern standards. I don't have comparison figures, but I assume that at the time steam engines were equal or smaller for an equivalent power output.
3. The original steam cars just released the steam from each cylinder motion as exhaust gas, and went through water quickly. From the page I linked, the original Stanley Steamers worked the same way and required about 1 gallon of water per mile in addition to the kerosene they burned to heat the steam. But later Stanley Steamers and other steam cars used condensers to recapture most of the steam after each cylinder motion, and used 1 gallon of water per 10 miles, or less.
4. From the page I linked, the boiler was wrapped in piano wire and designed with exhaust valves so that there would be no catastrophic boiler explosions. None are documented.
Now obviously, a century old Stanley Steamer can't match a modern car. It offered 40 horsepower, required one fuel tank for kerosene and one for water, and gets lower fuel economy. But imagine if the technology was updated with 100 years of technical know-how by more than a bright but small and group of students at Southampton University with limited funding. I don't know if it could be made as good as modern cars, but I bet the gap would narrow tremendously.
Re:Check that off the obscure to-do list (Score:1, Informative)
"Bicycles today are far more dangerous than a penny farthing."
No they aren't. Modern rim brakes and a much more stable configuration allow modern bikes to brake as hard as motorcycles. Also, modern bikes can turn much harder due to their advantageous frame geometry and pneumatic tires. You sound like one of those hipsters that claim your fixie is actually faster than my geared road bike, but you refuse to prove it.